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New convert here! After seeing ads for this week's theatrical showings of the movie, I decided to spend the last couple of weeks finally checking out the series, having heard great things about it for the last twenty-odd years. As I made my way through the episodes, I listened along with the Get Anime'd podcast, which was both funny and informative. One host is a longtime fan and the other two were experiencing it for the first time as I was, and the added context and background information were really helpful, because I'm sure I would have missed a lot of subtext if I were watching it on my own. Early on, the show felt a little trope-y, but was still clearly a very well-executed take on the giant mech genre, so I was along for the ride and was happy to take the slow drip of lore based on the production quality and the show's reputation. By the halfway point, I was fully invested in the characters and their relationships, and it felt like a great payoff when the show started subverting my ideas of what the conflict was and what its giant robots really represented. The themes of using children as war machines while largely keeping them in the dark reminded me a lot of Ender's Game, and the show's gradual turn to horror was a great rebuttal to how the genre depicts children piloting giant killing machines as if it's some kind of fun adventure. Admittedly, the last few episodes left a bad taste in my mouth -- I vaguely knew already that the finale was controversial, but for me it really took a turn in Episodes 23 and 24, when they were ramping up to the ending and started cramming in new characters and plot points without giving anything room to breathe. I don't know if this is the case or not, but it felt like a show where they were cancelled abruptly and had to fit about eight episodes' worth of story into four. While I appreciated the guts it took to make the huge artistic swing that the last two episodes did, it felt unearned to me because the jump to that point from where the previous episodes left off, with only a couple of throwaway lines to put it in context, seemed like a narrative shortcut after a couple of episodes that were already full of shortcuts. I got some serious "second disc of Xenogears" vibes there, for the five of you who know what I'm talking about, and I completely understand why so many fans found the finale unsatisfying at the time. That being said, The End of Evangelion won me right back. The added context for the trippiness of the ending was really helpful, the animation was awesome, and the characters who got brushed aside in the finale all got satisfying character arcs this time around. The movie was a far better execution of Anno's highfalutin ideas about using his art to connect other people with his mind, and I'm really glad I got the chance to experience it on a big screen along with a packed house of confused but enthusiastic fans. I'll look forward to checking out the Rebuild movies after sitting with the original series for a bit and digesting it. I'm sure that the home video options have been discussed to death, so I apologize for the redundancy, but I didn't see anything about it from skimming the first page and the last couple, so I'll ask some questions here. As I understand it, none of the Blu-ray releases outside of Japan have the licensed music cues (i.e. "Fly Me to the Moon"), so I'm thinking about importing a Japanese Blu-ray set to have the most complete version of the series. Since Japan and the US are both in Region A, compatibility shouldn't be an issue. I'm looking at this boxed set, and it appears to have everything except the Rebuild. The product description mentions "video format versions of Episodes 21-24", which I take it are the director's cuts. It sounds like the broadcast versions of those episodes are remastered in HD but the director's cuts aren't, which is a bummer, but not a dealbreaker. My one concern is that the product details, on this site and elsewhere, say that there are no subtitles in any languages -- is that true? I don't mind having to learn to navigate Japanese menus, but English subtitles for the episodes themselves are essential for me. Any chance that someone here owns that Japanese set and can confirm or deny whether there are subtitles and whether the translation is any good?
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Mar 18, 2024 01:04
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 16:15 |
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Dagnabbit. Thanks for the disappointing but prompt reply.
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Mar 18, 2024 01:29
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I described my audience as "enthusiastic", but that might not be the right word. Everyone was clearly engaged, but respectful -- none of the fanservice clapping you associate with opening night at a Marvel movie or something. Weirdly, I think it helped that the opening hospital scene was so uncomfortable that it sucked all the oxygen out of the auditorium, and nobody really knew how to react to what they were seeing. The fact that the credits were in the middle of it was also nice, because it acted as a sort of intermission when people could get up to use the bathroom and get any chatter out of their systems. I overheard one quiet utterance of "Wait, what the gently caress?" during one of the later surreal parts, but thankfully no commentary outside of that. The podcast I mentioned talked about how Anno wanted the ending of the series to give viewers an on-ramp back to the real world, or in other words, a way of giving the audience permission to leave the show behind and return to their own lives -- this was kind of explicit in the live-action footage near the end, but also either intentionally or unintentionally aided by the abruptness with which the film ends. Where there would normally be end credits that give you time to sit and ponder what you've just watched, this one was just a fade to black, then the house lights going up immediately. It was beautifully jarring, and the mood of the crowd was something like, "Wow, that was weird, oh well, time to go home!" As people were filing out and trying to explain and interpret the film to each other, the shared befuddlement made me feel oddly connected to the other viewers in a way that I'm not sure any other movie screening I've attended has pulled off. If you're on the fence about seeing one of the showings on the 20th, I'd highly recommend it.
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Mar 18, 2024 03:30
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